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Manufacturing a flip-flop »

Huffington Wants Obama To Veer Left

Posted by PATRICK EDABURN in Media, Politics.
Jul 1st, 2008 | Comments

In her article posted on Real Clear Politics, Arianna Huffington suggests that Obama should not tack to the center this fall but should instead move to the left. She claims that the her opinion is not based on her own progressive views but instead on real political considerations.

However with all due respect I must dispute this claim. If you read between the lines there is an unspoken assumption that everyone agrees with her liberal views and therefore it makes no sense to tack to the center.

Indeed her attitude towards those it the middle is contemptuous at best and on some levels quite hostile. This does not seem to be a very wise political course but then again we are talking about Huffington. Just as many of the hard right pundits would throw away elections for the GOP, so Huffington seems intent on doing so for the left.

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Polimom

However with all due respect I must dispute this claim. If you read between the lines there is an unspoken assumption that everyone agrees with her liberal views and therefore it makes no sense to tack to the center.

That seems to be the assumption from many many folks on the left at the moment. While I don't agree that Obama's tacking much of anywhere, I do think that perhaps some Dems have lost track of the timeline. While much of the country does not, in fact, agree with the entire left agenda, they generally understand that primaries require a different emphasis. Obama has (appropriately) moved into general election mode. Hopefully Arianna Huffington (and others) will catch up, temporally.

ChrisWWW

Obama should stick with the positions he staked out in the primary. If he wants to emphasize his more moderate stances, OK. But completely shifting your rhetoric isn't acceptable, and he should be roundly criticized for it.

The Democrats were wildly successful in the 2006 elections because the country was unhappy with Bush / Republican policies and because the Democrats seemed to be offering something wholly different. By moving to the "center," a.k.a. adopting Republican policies, Obama looks...

a) like a flip flopper
b) weak and convictionless
c) like a Republican-lite

And that adds up to John Kerry.

Neocon

Remember the outrage the left threw at the GOP in the 2004 elections but more notably in the 2006 elections? You know the ones where Bush and the GOP'ers were using scare tactics to get your vote.

Well guess who showed up with scare tactics to get your vote. Right. The dems and their pacs are trying to use the same scare tactics against their gop counterparts that they were incensed at coming from the Right and the GOP.

Flip flopping? No I think Obama is fixing to be a ping pong ball in the battle for the Democratic party the next 5 months.

runasim

Chris,

Why make the primaries the benchmark? Because you liked that?

Other Democrats didn't like his primary tactics, and are relieved to see him return to his original centrist mode. If you missed that part, that's not Obama's fault.

runasim

I'm with Polimon.
The flip-flops are only a flopping away from the delusions some Democrats had developed.

Re: Huffington
I'm sorry to say that she is in the business of marketing herself, not advancing any particular party or policy.

She gets insights and develops themes, repeated over and over, like a mantra.
.In interviews,she falls apart if she has to go off-script and discuss anything above Michael Moore level.

Arianna is a businesswoman and a personlity, not a deep political or philophical thinker.

DLS

If Obama moves left, he may [re]gain votes, but at the cost of how many more, deservedly?

ChrisWWW

Why make the primaries the benchmark? Because you liked that?

Why believe anything he says then?

neilbco

If Obama's steering to the center is upsetting Ms. Huffington then he must be doing something right. The Lady is a total narcissist and confuses her role as a journalist with her role as a celebrity and a self-proclaimed leader of the Democratic Party. You don't run for president to finish in second place. Ask Al Gore. Before this is all over Obama will be shaking hands and smiling with all sorts of people that used to vote Republican. More power to him.

runasim

Chris,
Why make the primaries the benchmark? Because you liked that?
Why believe anything he says then?
-----------------------------------
If you had paid attention to Obama before the promaries, you would have noticed that in the primaries, he changed emphasis, not his basic policy stand. There was pandering, yes, but far less than by Hillary or McCain..

Too many people were reading much too much into every nuance. and every change in emphasis during the primaries.
If you're looking for certified promises on every particular, then don't pay any attention to politics. No one can tell you now exactly what he'll do in June, 2009, for example, because circumstances will determine that as much as previously stated intentions..
I think, if anything, Obama is a realist. Perhaps we should all pick up the habit.

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